This blog originally appeared on the Nguzo Africa website.    The recent USAID foreign aid freeze reminds me of the mythical story of Daedalus and his son Icarus who flew high in the skies using wings made of wax and feathers. Ignoring his father’s warnings, Icarus flew too close to the sun and met a tragic end.   The Daedalus and Icarus cautionary tale reminds us about painful tragic end of excess, hubris and disobedience. It fits the current state of falling development institutions built on fake wings of foreign aid. To escape, Daedalus creates wings of feathers and wax for himself and Icarus, but he warns...

  This blog originally appeared in Alliance magazine.    Amid a global surge in far-right and conservative movements, socio-environmental protections and human rights are facing unprecedented setbacks. In Brazil and beyond, this political shift is fueling a rollback of hard-won rights, intensifying attacks on marginalized groups, criminalizing civil society organizations, shrinking civic space, and triggering a sharp decline in international funding for advocacy and social justice efforts.   Financing cuts to social and humanitarian aid have put organizations at a crisis point, as the measures taken immediately after President Trump’s inauguration interrupted, partially or entirely froze the operations of multilateral organizations such as the WHO...